December? Sure doesn't feel like it

Shoppers, singers enjoy rare treat

Bill Reid figured it was a sucker bet when he told his wife he would hang the Christmas lights on their Naperville home the first day temperatures this holiday season hit 60 degrees.

"I was trying to get away with not having to do it at all," Reid said Sunday during a sun-splashed outing to the Lincoln Park Zoo. "Now I'm starting to regret picking that number."

With forecasters calling for a high of 60 degrees by Tuesday, Reid, 42, may have to worry about pulling out the ladder and making good on his promise. Still, the run of unseasonably warm, dry weather had him all smiles Sunday as he and his daughter Eva took in the zoo's 25th annual Caroling to the Animals program.

Sunny skies and a high temperature of 52 degrees Sunday drew bigger-than-usual crowds to the zoo and made for some happy Christmas shoppers on the city's Magnificent Mile.

The high was 12 degrees above normal, nowhere near the date's record high of 71 reached in 1982, but a far cry from last year when the high was 35 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.

So far this season, no measurable snowfall has been recorded at O'Hare International Airport. Nor was there any sign of white stuff in the forecast through Saturday, Dec. 8, a key date in the annals of Chicago snowstorms.

On that day last year, the first significant snow--about 2 inches--fell in a long month of what proved to be heavy snows, according to WGN-TV Chief Meteorologist Tom Skilling.

The unofficial record snowfall of 41.1 inches for December was recorded at Midway Airport. The official record for the month was set in 1951 when Chicago got hit with 33.3 inches.

Chicago may see its first sticking snow by the weekend of Dec. 16, Skilling said, though he cautioned that predictions beyond seven days become significantly less reliable. "Long-range forecasters are calling for some periods of colder than usual air this winter," Skilling said. "But it's especially tough to predict extreme weather. Nobody last year had any idea that December was going to see record snow."

This November was only the second in Chicago history that saw no measurable snowfall, Skilling said. The first was in 1999, according to records dating back to the 1880s.

The jet stream has been drawing warm, Pacific moisture from the West Coast and sending it north of Chicago, Skilling said. Last year Chicago was on the north or cold side of the jet stream, bringing low temperatures and heavy snowstorms.

The bare ground at the Lincoln Park Zoo stood in sharp contrast to the songs of a white Christmas and winter wonderlands. But Reid and his daughter weren't complaining.

"We're probably not going to see any snow this Christmas," said Eva, 6. "But I don't care. When it snows, I have to get so bundled up, I can't move."